I write this having returned from the 10-hour concert event known as Bled Fest. Held in a high school in Howell, MI, Bled Fest featured 70 bands on six stages. Stages A and B were next to each other in a large gym-type area. Stages C and D were right at the entrance of the school and sounded terrible. Stage E was a classroom and Stage F was an auditorium that was home to many out-of-place post-rock bands. I came to see Every Time I Die, La Dispute and Defeater, and came away pleasantly surprised with a lot of bands I hadn't heard before. Here's who I saw.

Walked by the classroom in which these guys were playing and thought they sounded interesting. Turns out they're a really solid post-hardcore band with influences from all around the genre. They were also one of two bands to cover "Breed" by Nirvana over the course of the day. Picked up two EPs for $5 total.

Dear God was this band atrocious. Sat through them from the back while waiting for Stray From the Path. Their music is entirely bass-drops and terrible clean sections. They also went over time and the entire crowd flipped them off because they wanted to see Stray. Their shirts say "BRO IT UP AND THROW IT DOWN." Enough said.

The best of the three post-rock bands I saw. These Grand Rapids natives have a great bassist who looks like a total dweeb. They were somewhere in between the fast-paced, straightforward style of Maybeshewill and the generic builds and climaxes of your average Explosions in the Sky clone. I'm gonna look into more of their stuff.

I still need to look into these guys. Really fun and unique post-hardcore band. The crowd was far more excited by them then I expected, and it was the start of a night-long trend of me being too short to see anything and the crowd being extremely mosh-happy.

This is when the crowd was really getting too wound up. The band was all about climbing all over the speakers and getting people involved to make up for their horribly bland metalcore assault. Some douchebag decided to pick a fight with a security guard and they fought throughout the crowd, coming to inches away from my face before getting broken up.

The first band that I actually came to see. Unfortunately "see" isn't really the best verb to use here, because as I said, I am short and the audience was all over the place. Stage diving everywhere at all times. Dear Father was awesome.

Playing on the parallel stage as soon as Defeater finished were tourmates La Dispute. The home-state heroes drew by far the largest crowd of the night and the stage was covered by a wall of security guards. Occasionally I'd see Jordan Dreyer's head pop up but mostly I was pushed back. I had my first real pit experience during Bury Your Flame, and the crowd seemed to know every word to everything. I'd love to see them in a more intimate setting.

By this point I was so exhausted I didn't know if I was even ready for these guys. It was nearly impossible to escape the pit that opened up for them, which was unfortunately full of only hardcore dancers--the bane of my existence. Other than the flailing morons, they were by far the most energetic and fun band of the night. Wanderlust was of course awesome. And half of the crowd was on stage during Floater. Their headlining set was sadly cut short because of fucking Norma Jean's failure to play a half-hour set.

Just returned from Bled Fest as well. Craziest set has to go to The Chariot for the aformentioned climbing and security guard fight. I'd have to disagree with you though about the blandness of The Chariot and Norma Jean. I got front for Norma Jean and expected to stay there for Every Time I Die, but after the intense set, i was too exhausted to stay there for ETID. Sunlight Ascending, like you said, was enjoyable to listen to as i have an affinity for post-rock bands, but they were pretty formulaic. But the set being in the new air conditioned auditorium was really nice.

"For all those sleeping is gay as fuck but coming from a guy who left Bled Fest early to drive back to goddamn Toledo to see Converge play at least give me some respect!"

I really wish that show had come to Detroit on the 27th instead of West Virginia.

Also it's not ignorant to say the Chariot are really bad, because they are really bad. I did go in trying to enjoy them because I heard from multiple people that they're great live. Unfortunately monotonous music and morons starting fights with security aren't good examples of a live show to me, no matter how good your stage presence is.

Technically I did see Koji, because when I was taking a walk outside in the rain he was walking around under the roof playing acoustic guitar and singing. Also he randomly appeared at the end of Such Gold's set that I walked in on to play inaudibly.

Eh, it was up and down. Like I said, I expected to hate or be indifferent to pretty much everything before Defeater, and walked away liking a lot of what I saw. I had no idea there was going to be a post-rock stage but it was pretty great. It also always had a decent crowd just because it was air-conditioned and had seats.

Wilson, which is a local band from Lansing, put on a great show. Really enertaining. I am Alaska was pretty good for never hearing them before then. Lions Lions put on a good show i thought. ETID was awesome! Tons of energy. I dont really like the chariot but they at least made it entertaining to watch.

I was exhausted and was just sitting in the back of stage F which is basically an auditorium. So I had a nice comfy chair in the middle and just watched Eisley play their stuff and that was really enjoyable.

Just stumbled on this looking through old Bled Fest posts for nostalgia. This was a cool read cause I remember pretty much every moment you described haha. I always remembered that Felix Culpa band, who I guess have broken up? I've been back to the festival twice and kind of pissed that they don't use the auditorium anymore.